Even if your site hasn't lost any traffic over the years, if you find a bunch of technical errors, they could be keeping you from receiving all the search engine traffic you deserve. It's very possible that spending a day fixing these problems could pay off handsomely in the long run. Long tail keywords may offer more chances to show up higher in the search results, while you can also perform manual searches on your own to test the first pages of the keywords you want to target. Gone are the days when you have to mention exact keyword phrases a specific number of times at a certain frequency. Not all links are equal, as high-authority sites contribute more heavily in this regard. This means you should aim for more reputable mentions – but without snubbing any lesser sites that might link to you, as it all adds up. It’s easier for a source to link to your content if it’s authentic, interesting and well-researched, so always aim for quality over quantity. Content marketing has always been crucial but it is no longer enough to research several industry keywords, place them on your blog and rely on affiliate network to post links back to your site.
Adjust your appearance in search
By limiting your SEO efforts to Google, you might be missing out on some great opportunities for small business growth. While building backlinks, developing your social media presence, and other off-site practices are great for boosting your site’s rankings, on-page optimization is still incredibly important. SEO isn’t magic or voodoo. I know some SEO consultants will make you believe they possess magical powers and only they can optimize your website, but don’t listen to them. Anchor text of external links affects ranking. Links with SEO focused anchor text needs to be relevant to the target page. Being listed at the top of the results not only provides the greatest amount of traffic, but also instills trust in consumers as to the worthiness and relative importance of the company or website.
Education is the best legacy
Generally speaking where a user is asking a question as part of their search query the results will return a featured snippet. In order to find opportunities for featured snippets we need to go back to keyword research to find suitable terms, the higher volume key phrases should be used as a basis for further research as you’ll then often see better opportunities in the “People also ask” section with more specific questions being asked that offer much better opportunities for featured snippets. Use relevant and accurate meta descriptions, title tags and alt text throughout your site. If a blog or web site doesn’t use the NoFollow tag, the search engines acknowledge the link; if a site does use the NoFollow tag, the search engines do not acknowledge the link. Are internal links as valuable as external links? Building trust in the customer through your content is a must. Focusing on user intent helps do it. We write content for our audience. Until our audience trusts our content it is of no use. Trust helps get exposure for your brand. Use trust building words. Follow up what you say with facts. A 301redirect means that the move is permanent. If you need to change the URL of a page as it is shown in search engine results, then you should use a server-side 301 redirect.
Don’t overstuff your page with keywords and phrases
Gaz Hall, from SEO Hull, had the following to say: "Use the rel=nofollow tag in the links to websites that you do not trust, you think maybe using spamming techniques or you do not want to help in the search engines." These days, directory links are unlikely to generate a torrent of traffic but they're a good way to build external links to your site. Additionally, links from specialized directories in your niche will bring in a steady stream of targeted visitors and help reinforce the topic of your site with Google. Links still matter. We should just think of them differently. Consider whether the links you attract will actually drive qualified traffic to your site, rather than just adding to antiquated metrics like external link volume. Principally, technical SEO is concerned with how a website works, and how search engines are able to crawl and index our pages. Think of technical SEO as the foundations of your site – without it, whatever beautiful building you create won’t be as sturdy as you’d like. You can initiate a productive relationship with market leaders by leaving intelligent, perceptive comments on their content, regularly. Then, you can feature them in one of your blogs or videos and send them an e-mail notifying them about it. In addition, you can also request them to share your content and include a link in their articles.
Getting Started with SEO Keyword Research
Your website URL should generally be related to/contain your keywords. The domain name keywords are a very important ranking signal for Google, so take advantage of it if you can. *Note that this ranking factor has been made less powerful over the past couple of years, specifically for EMDs (exact match domains where only exact keywords are in the domain name). CPA can vary greatly depending on your investment in local SEO, but is relatively low considering the low cost of local SEO. ROI can also be very high, since local SEO targets only consumers who need your services, which means you won’t waste money exposing your business to disinterested consumers. Pick your permalink structure wisely. Don’t change your permalink structure for the sake of it. Incorrectly redirecting your old URLs to the new URLs might lead to problems and could get you dropped from the rankings. The degree to which search engines rely on evaluating link neighborhoods is not clear, and links from nonrelevant pages are still believed to help the rankings of the target pages. The best way to build links is to not build links. I’ve worked for companies in the past that don’t have to ask for them, they just flow in from press, customer blogs, their awesome blog posts, etc. If this is an option (and we’ll go over a couple of ways to make it more likely) you’re in a great place.
Links are similar to glue
If anyone guarantees you page 1 ranking on Google within a three-month timespan, run for the hills. If you are currently producing five articles a week that get less than 100 visits each, try creating a single keyword-targeted article each week, with more research and more value to your audience, and then actively promote this article to key influencers in your industry. The modern user has a very short attention span. If a website takes more than a few seconds to load, she/he is likely to leave. Therefore, it’s really important to make sure that site speed/load time is optimized as much as possible. It often takes time for the results to show in SEM. It doesn’t happen overnight. Keep the patience and continuously monitor your website. When you incorporate real SEO into your website, you’ve made a conscious decision to plant a seed, nurture that seed, and help it grow over time. This long-term strategy and efforts produce high-quality results that continue to produce results year and year.